Atma-sphere amps best power tubes


This question has been debated before on A-gon but without a clear onclusion. I wonder, is it worth it, to upgrade from stock Russian or China output tubes (6as7g), to American NOS tubes?

It seems that everyone agrees that upgrading the Atma-sphere driver tubes from stock Russian/Chinese to NOS is well worth it. This is my experience also.

I am wondering about changing the output / power tubes too. I wonder if a change to NOS is well worth it also in the output case.

It seems likely, judging from my other equipment testing.

My Audiotailor Jade OTL headphone amp uses 1 6asg7 and 1 12ax7. No surprise - it sounds better with a good NOS 12ax7 compared to Russian/Chinese stock 12ax7.

More surprisingly, it also sounds clearly better with a NOS 6as7g output tube (General Electric US NOS). The improvement is largest with the driver tube but not so much behind with the output tube. Almost 50 50.

A lot of output tubes are involved - 28 tubes in my MA-1 amps. Changing them all is costly, and so I would like to know some user experience before I go into this.
Ag insider logo xs@2xo_holter
O_Holter, Interesting report. The truth can be painful. I have been a tube hoarder after discovering that changing out the Chinese 6SN7 driver for NOS Sylvania GTBs (not even fancy pants tubes)in my first tube amp made such a positive impact on the sound. That was about 12 or more years ago. Now divorced I have my tube collection but few places to use it.
I have about 75 really good, some quite rare, 6SN7s in arms length at the moment-Feel free to contact me, if the rules allow it.
Here is an update on my RCA and other US NOS output tubes, over the last year. No problems at all - they all run fine. Adding to better sound. I am glad that I followed the careful break in procedure, described by Atma-sphere.
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Now that you have some nice NOS power tubes.  Why not, try rolling some of the 6SN7s you may be pleasantly surprised.